Edward S. Rooney, a partner the firm from 1929 until his death in 1970, was born in Albany in 1906. He graduated from Manhattan College and received his legal education at Harvard Law School. He joined the firm in 1929 and was senior partner from 1952 to 1970. Rooney was a brilliant lawyer excelling in banking law. He was counsel for the State Banking Association and played a major role in a famous test case in the Court of Appeals which established that savings banks could legally stop interest payments on accounts inactive for over 20 years. Vennard v. Albany Savings Bank, 282 N.Y. 718 (1940) Click here for decision.
In 1944, at age 38, Rooney became the youngest president of the First Trust Company Bank. He held that position for 24 years until the bank merged with Bankers Trust New York, at the time the nation’s second largest bank. He then became a director of Bankers Trust. Rooney was also a trustee of Albany Savings Bank and director of The United Traction Company, both large firm clients. Rooney was gregarious and generous and a prodigious business producer. In his little time off, he enjoyed being with his family at Lochlea Estate his Lake George summer home.
Rooney died in 1970 at age 64.
